Max Mosley: My sado-masochism is a quirk of character

Max Mosley has spoken about his interest in sado-masochism, saying it is a 'quirk' of character and people are 'animals in the end'.

The ex-Formula One boss said his 'deep interest' in beating as a sexual activity started when he was just three or four years old but he did not know where it came from.

In 2008 the High Court awarded Mr Mosley £60,000 damages against the News of the World after ruling that there was no justification for a front-page article and pictures about his meeting with five prostitutes in a London flat.

Victory: Max Mosley leaves the High Court on July 24, 2008 having won his legal action against the News of the World's expose of the racing boss taking part in an Nazi themed orgy

The 70-year-old is now campaigning to oblige newspapers to notify their 'victims' before exposing their private lives.

He has taken his case to the European Court of Human Rights, where judges will deliver a verdict later this year.

Tragic: Alexander Mosley died of a drugs overdose a year after pictures of his father Max were published in a Sunday newspaper

Asked about his interest in BDSM (bondage, dominance, sadism, masochism), he told FT Weekend Magazine: 'I think it's like being homosexual. It's a quirk in your character. People have to be adult and simply say, well it's sex and sex is very strange.

Even ordinary sex is either very funny or disgusting, or both. That's how it is, we're animals in the end.

'Yes, if you're a civilised human being there's a great reluctance to hurt somebody. You may find it disagreeable, but you do it because you're giving such pleasure to the other person. In that world it's an absolute taboo to go beyond the limit of the victim if you're the oppressor.'

Mr Mosley said he could not point to anything in childhood which started his interest but he had known from the age of three or four.

He said even at a young age if he heard a story about somebody being beaten it triggered 'a deep interest', adding: 'As soon as I even knew, or half knew, what sex was, I saw being beaten as a sexual activity.'

Mr Mosley said the revelations about his private life had been difficult for his wife who no longer wants to go out. And he said the story also had a 'very bad effect' on his elder son, Alexander, who died of a drug overdose a year after it was published.

He added that it was embarrassing to talk about sex, which should be private.

He also said he was 'not really practised' at BDSM which was 'only ever a small thing' which he used to go for years without doing.